


Mother's Day

by pidgethepidgeon



Series: Beetlejuice Short Stories [1]
Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Family, Hurt/Comfort, I can be a really sad writer guys, Lydia needs a hug, Mother's Day, Sad with a Happy Ending, fanfic I posted on my tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 06:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21590179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pidgethepidgeon/pseuds/pidgethepidgeon
Summary: Lydia prepares to celebrate her first Mother's Day since Emily's death. The whole family tries to make it easier for her.
Series: Beetlejuice Short Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556005
Comments: 6
Kudos: 105





	Mother's Day

Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10th, 2020

The day started like any other morning in the Deetz-Maitland household. The youngest member of the family, fifteen-year-old Lydia woke up and glancing at the calendar felt a twang of pain in her chest. She had known this day was approaching and over the past year she has had to deal with many firsts without her mother, but this was something that she just couldn’t move past. Christmas she had been distracted with the shower of affection from her disjointed by well-meaning family, even Halloween which was her mother’s favorite Holiday she had been able to go on about her life. Of course, she thought about her mother, but she wasn’t locked in her bedroom with her head buried in her pillows like the first few months following the death. 

Mother’s Day was different though, this holiday was specifically meant for Mothers, it was built into the name and Lydia no longer had one. 

She wiped away a few stray tears from her face as she got ready for the day, she tried to ignore all the kids at school rambling on about how screwed they were for forgetting to get their mother a present or a card. Eventually, during the day it had been too much for her, and she desperately needed to be alone. She found solace in the little crevice under the stairwell and for once was grateful for her small stature. Instead of taking the bus home, as usual, she walked to the center city and into a gift shop. She longingly stared at all the gifts for mothers, lavishing in memories of her agonizing over the perfect gift to get her in the previous years. She knew that no matter what she got her mother would have loved it but Lydia liked to get her something nice each year. The previous year she has gotten an ugly ceramic which they lovingly named Martin, she bought it because she knew it would make her mom laugh. 

“Can I help you find anything sweetheart?” a kind old woman asked the startled girl

“No, no.” she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, “I was just...I was just browsing.”

“Are you alright?”

Lydia nodded her head, “You know, could you actually help me with something?”

Lydia left the store with a bag full of presents, she quickly retreated to her room at the house and got to work carefully to make sure nobody saw what she was doing. After a couple of hours, she was satisfied with her handiwork and trotted down the stairs proudly, the gifts hidden behind her back. 

“Delia, Barbara! Come to the kitchen!”

Delia sauntered in from the living room and even though she could levitate Barbara came down the stairs. Both women had been keeping a little distance from Lydia that day, unsure if she wanted their company or if she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Knowing Lydia they were both surprised they had been called in. Sheepishly Lydia bounced on her heels.

“I just wanted to say….” Lydia huffed trying to unscramble to words in her brain but her tongue wouldn’t make the words happen, “I wanted to say thank you. I, uh, thank you for being here. For being here for me, it’s my first without ...anyway.” she handed them the cards awkwardly with the bags still hanging off her wrist, “Anyway you’ve both been wonderful and I wanted to let you know how much I love you both.”

Delia and Barbara exchanged an emotional look before crushing Lydia with a much-needed hug. Lydia melted into the embrace, resting her head on Barbara’s shoulder and gripping tightly to Delia’s arm. After a few seconds, she laughed, “Guys I can’t breathe!”

“Ohh, sorry!” 

The women broke the embrace and for a second Lydia twirled her fingers awkwardly, “Oh wait I have presents!”She handed the green bag to Barbara and the yellow bag to Barbara, “I wasn’t exactly sure what to get for you both, I had to have the lady at the store help me.”

Barbara opened her gift first, it was a beautiful glaze tea set equipped with several bags of her favorite kind of tea, “Oh my goodness Lydia this must have cost you a fortune! I can’t accept this!”

“No, no I insist. Really you have done so much for me this past year, it’s the least I can do.” Lydia then looked over to her step-mother, “You now!”  
Delia tore the bag open and pulled out a handful of sparkling crystals and a book on the healing property of rocks, with a smile she gave the small goth another hug. 

“I don’t understand it, but you seem to like them.” Lydia teased

“You are the sweetest girl. Thank you so much.”

“I didn’t want to ignore today, I keep telling myself I don’t have a mom anymore and yeah I guess that’s true I have you both now and that’s pretty great in my mind.”

“You’re pretty great yourself too.” Barbara tousled her hair, “Why don’t the three of us have some quality girl bonding time tonight in the attic. I’ll give BJ and Adam to boot and we can spend the whole night watching movies and drinking tea.”

“That sounds really nice.” 

Later that evening BJ was stalking around the kitchen having been kicked out of the attic along with Adam. He was supposed to be finding something to eat while they played some dumb card game Adam taught him when a blue envelope caught his eye. On top of the letter written in Lydia’s fancy cursive was the word: Mom and a drawing of some kind of bird.

“Aw, kiddo.” BJ mused taking the card into his hands, “I know it’s gotta be hard for you.”

He took a piece of chalk off the island and drew a door, knocking three times BJ swaggered into the green light of the Netherworld. He didn’t make a habit of going there, he still didn’t quite like his mother even after they had briefly reconciled after the strange events after the sham wedding to Lydia, no amount of apologizing could change how Juno had treated BJ his while life and afterlife. He made an exception though, for Lydia. He made his way to the front desk where Tina was sitting, as usual, waiting to greet the new arrivals.

“I need you to do me a favor.”

“Fat chance, Juno told me to tell you to scram if you come here again.”

“Come on Tina, it’s not for me this time. I need you to do me a favor for that little goth kid.”

“Ohhh that poor living girl who came here looking for someone?”

“Yeah, that would be the one. Look I know I’m not the best person out there and I’ve done some crappy stuff but just help me out here.”

“What do you need Lawrence.”

“S ee that this gets to Emily Deetz please,” he said, handing the envelope to Tina

“Lawrence even if I wanted to help you I couldn’t you know the rules, no outside objects in the Netherworld, especially not from someone living trying to communicate with the dead.”

“And who’s rule would that be?”

“Your mother’s.”

Annoyance building up in him BJ demanded to speak to Juno for the first time in several months. She snaked up to him, as crotchety as ever as she blew her cigarette smoke in his face, “Well look who decided to show up and wish me a happy mother’s day.”

“Happy Mother’s Day Mom, I just need you to bend the rules a little bit for me.”

“Shocker, every time I think you’re turning yourself around you go right back to your selfish ways. What can I do for you now Lawrence, lemme guess something stupid?”

“No, Jesus you can be so hard on me!” resolving the composure he tried to focus on the task at hand, “I know you don’t like her but I need you to do a favor for Lydia.”

“I don’t dislike Lydia, I just rightfully want her dead for trying to sneak into the Netherworld. That can still be arranged by the way,”

“Try again in eighty years. Please, can you just give this to Emily Deetz? It’s mother’s day and I think it would be good for both of them if you could just pass it on.”

“You know the rules…”

“You make the rules! Come on, just this once. It’s not for me, do it for the kid. She’s been having a hard time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Juno took the card and stuffed it in her bag, “Now if you’ll excuse me I have dead people to greet and break the news to.”

“Thank you, mom.”

“Yeah, yeah.” she waved her hand dismissively

It took her a while but she eventually found the Emily Deetz, who would have guessed there would have been thousands of them in the Netherworld and while she had already bent the rules once to give the woman the corny card she once more gave some leeway when the brunette woman began to sob asking to see her daughter just one more time. 

“I can’t allow that, but I’ll tell you what: tell me something Lydia would know is from you and I’ll find a way to get it to her.”

Without hesitation, Emily told the demon what to send, and Juno went on her way

Back in the attic, Lydia was nestled between Barbara and Delia on the sofa, she has just popped some popcorn to snack on when the put on the second movie. Suddenly there was a thud at the attic window, jumping up the trio went to investigate. When the opened the window a small violet-colored bird was standing on the windowsill happily chirping. 

“Poor little fella,” Barbara lamented, “Must be lost strange for this kind of bird to find its way up to this part of the state.”

“How on Earth do you know that.” Lydia laughed

“Adam and I took a bird watching class a few years ago, a friend got it for us for our anniversary. If I am not mistaken this birdie is a purple martin.”

“Martin?” Lydia whispered

“Yep, a purple Martin.” Barbara looked the bird into her hands and placed it on Lydia’s finger, “This one seems very friendly.”

Lydia stared at the bird, and it seemed as is the bird was starting back. Suddenly the animal brushed it’s head lovingly against her finger and cooed. She fought hard to keep back tears, “Wow you sure know a lot about birds.” Lydia’s voice squeaked

“Is there something the matter sweetie?”

“No, I’m great actually. It’s just this is such a great bird, I wish we could keep it, but I know it probably wants to get back to its bird family. Would you guys mind if I said a private goodbye?”

“Honey...that’s a bird, birds can’t-” Delia began but Barbara understood and pulled the redhead back with her

Lydia stroked the bird’s feathers and gave it a gentle kiss on the top of its had before releasing back out the window, “Happy Mother’s Day mom. I love you.”

Sneaking down the stairs Barbara stumbled upon BJ playing an intense game of go-fish with Adam she glided over to the table and narrowed her eyes at the demon, “Did you have something to do with what just happened upstairs?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Babs but if it was a prank probably, but I’ve been with A-Dog all night playing some kind of gambling game.”

Adam winked at his wife as he gestured to BJ’s great winnings from the evening.

“Well whatever hand you had in it,” Barbara wrapped her arms around him from behind, “Thank you. Lydia really needed that.”


End file.
